Turkish is one of the more prominent European ethnicities in terms of presence, power and influence and always has been. Just take a look at maps through the centuries.

We have already mentioned the Turkish Etruscans who founded human civilization in Italy.

Then there is the Byzantine Empire, which ruled as the Roman Empire from the east. Scientific dna studies have confirmed that the present day Turkish people are descended from the Anatolians of the Byzantine period and not from Turkics from central Asia. (Some just cant "understand" scientific facts.)

Then the Ottomon Empire, which always had close ties with the German Empire. Indeed they were allied against the French and the British in WWI.

In fact the Germanic I haplogroup is genetically much closer to the Turkish J haplogroup than to the R haplogroups of west or east Europe as both are descended from haplogroup IJ.

Turks invented Pizza? If someone can prove it, I'll sell everything I own and give the money to an African charity.

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The origin of the Etruscan alphabet is not in doubt. The first alphabet was invented by Semitic-speakers in the ancient Near East, though the Caananite and later Phoenician alphabets had only consonants, and no vowels. The Greeks derived their alphabet from the Phoenicians and added vowels, producing the first true alphabet. A western variety of the Greek alphabet was carried by the Euboean Greeks to Italy, and the Etruscans acquired the alphabet from them. The Etruscans in turn passed on the alphabet to the Romans.

(In its turn the Etruscan alphabet was diffused at the end of the Archaic period [c. 500 BCE] into northern Italy, becoming the model for the alphabets of the Veneti and of various Alpine populations; this happened concurrently with the formation of the Umbrian and the Oscan alphabets in the peninsula.)

The Germanic Runes (the Futharc) are now thought to derive from the Northern Etruscan alphabet, a fact which supports the existence of a vast Etruscan trading network.

Systematic agriculture developed mainly in Turkey and was spread into Europe by the Turkish J2 and associated haplogroups. That provided the economic cultural basis for human civilization, "basic" things like the division of labour and social class stratification.

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Ancient origins of Agriculture

Further information: Neolithic Revolution

Developed independently by geographically distant populations, systematic agriculture first appeared in Southwest Asia with the bulk of domesticated neolthic crops and livestock now being traced to Turkey via DNA studies. The first grains of domesticated Turkish emmer wheat are found at Abu Hurerya dated to 13,500 BP. The only exceptions to this are barley, domesticated in two sites; in Israel, and East of the Zagros mountains in Iran. The eight so-called founder crops of agriculture appear: first emmer and einkorn wheat, then hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax.Bitter vetch and lentils along with almonds and pistachios appear in Franchthi Cave Greece simultaneously, about 9,000 BC. Neither are native to Greece, and they appear 2,000 years prior to domesticated wheat in the same location. This suggests that the cultivation of legumes and nuts preceded that of grain.

The Neolithic Revolution had many results socially and economically. Socially people could have more children and social classes emerged. Economically a surplus of food meant that people could also specialize in different things. The Neolithic Revolution was clearly the start of our society as we know it today.

Çatalhöyük (pronounced [ʧɑtɑl højyk] in Turkish; also Çatal Höyük and Çatal Hüyük, or any of the three without diacritics; çatal is Turkish for "fork", höyük for "mound") was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, dating from around 7500 B.C.E for the lowest layers. It is the largest and best preserved Neolithic site found to date.

Turks are a people original from central Asia, that forgotten huge region called Turkestan located between Siberia in the North, the Caspian Sea in the West, China in the East and the Himalaya in the South. This region is divided today in some republics (formerly sovietic) called Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and even the westerner region of China, populated by turks too. Azerbaijan, despite being in the Caucasus region, at the other side of the Caspian Sea, is also a turkish country.

All these countries speak turkish dialects and are islamic. This is why, as extra-europeans, they are racially not caucasoids but something between caucasoids and mongoloids. They are not semitic like Arabs and their speak is not related to Arab. Arabs simply gave them the Islam.Turks were historically a nomad people who lived from growing up horses and attacking their neighbours. Famous Turkish tribes are the Tartars (in the asian part of Russia) and the Hunes. The Hunes, before AD 400, were often making trouble to the Chinese (who called them Xiongnu and built the Great Wall to defend of them). They also usually attacked caravans on the Route of the Silk (the commercial way between Europe and Chine famous by Marco Polo writings). After year 400 they started molesting Europe. The famous Hune King Attila and his very damaging attacks to East Europe caused the Gothic migrations from Center Europe to Britain (Angles and Saxons), Spain (Visigoths and Sueves), France (Franks) and Italy (Ostrogoths) and, because of this push on the Goths, ultimately the Fall of the Roman Empire.The second time Turks molested Europe was about AD 1300, when other turkish tribe, the Ottomans, moved from Turkestan to today´s Turkey. Before that, Istambul (Constantinopla) was the capital city of the Bizantine Empire (the eastern part of the Roman Empire that didn´t fell after the Hunes' and Goths' attacks on Rome between 400 and 500) and the peninsula of Anatolia was populated by Greeks in the coast and different indoeuropean peoples in the center (Hittites, Galatas) and the east (Armenians, Kurds), all of them of christian religion except the Kurds, who were more mixed with Arabs and Persians and took Islam. The Turks invaded these lands, defeated the Bizantines (1453, fall of Constantinopla) and even occupied the south east of Europe, destroying again the rest of the Roman Empire and bringing their non-caucasoid race and their islamic religion. Their advance to the rest of Europe was stopped by a christian league leaded by Spain in the Battle of Lepanto (1571), when they were preparing to attack the Italian Republics.During the 1st World War, the Turks genocided near 1.000.000 Armenians. In 1920, by the Treaty of Sevres, Armenians should have founded a big country in the East of Turkey where some millions them live, but the Turks didn´t allow it by war (helped by their cousins in Azerbaijan) and that is why Armenia is today a very small country with most of its population abroad. There are also some million kurds in Turkey suffering abuse.The Turk peoples, those of Turkestan and the Ottomans, differently to the Arabs or the Persians, never made a civilization on their own, they preferred to attack and rob the european and chinese civilizations. The so called Ottoman Empire is not but the Bizantine Empire ruled by turks under Islam. All the monuments you can see in modern Turkey, including the mosques (which are old bizantine churches) were all built before their arrival. The only zone in the country close to an european standard is Istambul, the former Constantinopla, probably because the population, of greek and bizantine descend, is still white in some proportion there. The rest of turkish countries above mentioned are going from poor to extremely poor since they independized from Russia.

This is an interesting thread, I must concur that modern-day Turks have very little Mongol strain and that the majority of non-White blood in modern Turks is due to their "Hither Asiatic" strain . This racial type is Caucasoid, but not Europid and is more known as the "Semitic" racial type. There is no way Turks are no different than other Meds, as they are mixed and have a lower average IQ(87-89). Although they are without a doubt the "Whitest" nation in the Near East.
I think its plausible that the original Turks were Turanid(Caucasian with Mongoloid strain).

To call modern Turks, Semetic or Caucasian, is a stretch.
To this day some people in Turkey still exhibit strong mongoloid features despite centuries of race mixing.

Keep in mind that people in modern Turkey who look semetic or caucasian are not really Turks.
They are Greeks,Slavics,Iranians,Kurds,Syrians etc more or less assimilated into islamic Turkey.
Keep also in mind that most Turkics people are living in Central Asia.Their original homeland is Mongolia.
The first record of Turks as a distinct people was made by the Chinese in a sixth century text.
All these people share cultural,linguistics,historicals backgrounds.The Huns,for example,were a proto-Turks nation.
So as the original Turkic tribes expanded westward throughout Central Asia and Europe they enslaved various ethnics people ranging from pure Nordics (Alans) to semetics (syrians,lebanese).Modern Turkey is their final destination.